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| Porn Users Forum » External hard drive advice please? |
| 1-18 of 18 Posts | Page 1 |
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| 08-22-12 05:00pm - 4505 days | Original Post - #1 | |
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gaypornolover (0)
Active User Posts: 153 Registered: Jul 09, '11 Location: Birmingham, UK |
External hard drive advice please? Hey guys I'm not very technically minded but I wondered if someone could help with some dumb questions I have! For ages I knew I should get an external HD to back up my laptop and porn but I never bothered. Then I dropped my laptop - it's survived really well but it reminded me I really needed to do it! Plus I joined a load of sites at once which had some great content. I realised my 320Gb laptop hard drive only had about 30Gb of space left, largely because of my porn collection! So I finally got a 1Tb external portable drive from Western Digital. I've hooked it up today and used its own software to back up my computer fully, so that's all fine. However it seems to create a backup file you can only access in the event of an emergency, like a hard-drive failure. My thinking was to use it to store my porn collection on so I could maybe delete some off my main hard drive. I guess if I did that then I still wouldn't have a true backup for my porn as I'd just be transferring it from my computer hard drive to my external one. So now I'm copying over my porno folders directly to the external drive, so I can access the files from the external drive directly. Then I can delete from my my main laptop drive. Am I doing anything wrong or missing something? Should I maybe use this drive purely to backup my system and get a second one purely to store porn on? That way I'd have two external drives which would both have my porn on, so I'd have a backup, but I could use one purely for backup and one purely to store porn, and leave my laptop main HD with more space? I don't really understand the backup thing. It seems to backup everything on my PC but I don't know how I'd access it and get it all working again if my PC hard drive failed. Sorry to ramble, I wonder if anyone can explain? Edited on Aug 22, 2012, 05:04pm | |
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| 08-22-12 05:15pm - 4504 days | #2 | |
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rearadmiral (0)
Active User Posts: 1,453 Registered: Jul 16, '07 Location: NB/Canada |
I don't think you're doing anything wrong, it's probably a matter of choice as to whether you use the external drive as a primary drive or a backup. I use mine as primary, though I have them backed up on AC-powered drives. I've never installed the WD software that comes with those drive and never had a problem. I alsways get an error message, which I presume is because I haven't loaded the software, but all I do is clear that and I'm in business. Good luck with the drive. I've got a bunch of them and can't imagine storing porn any other way. | |
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| 08-22-12 06:17pm - 4504 days | #3 | |
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Claypaws (0)
Suspended Webmaster Posts: 144 Registered: May 16, '12 Location: UK |
To backup your porn, copy the files direct from the laptop to the external drive without using the Western Digital (WD) software. If you have any that you would be mortified to lose, copy it to two separate external drives. I do not know exactly what the WD software creates when it makes a computer backup, because all backup software is different. It might just make a backup of your system files, in a compressed format, and skip your data (porn) completely. If it has a manual, it should make clear exactly what it backs up. The WD website has a comprehensive Knowledgbase but it does tend to take you round in endless circles! If your laptop drive failed, and you needed to recover data from the backup, you might need a bootable CD loaded into the optical drive of the laptop, if it has one. Some backup software allows you to create a bootable CD for this purpose. Backup software supplied by hardware vendors usually performs poorly or not at all. I have no idea if WD's works well or not. To backup a system (as opposed to the porn) it is usually better to buy dedicated backup software such as Acronis True Image. I have used that to restore my system dozens of times and it works. | |
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| 08-22-12 09:54pm - 4504 days | #4 | |
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shooterbo (0)
Active User  Posts: 185 Registered: Apr 25, '07 |
Like a dummy, I have never worried about backup, so my 2 externals hold nothing but porn, and that is the way I like it. And you can transfer files back and forth at will between those 2 and the PC main drive. | |
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| 08-23-12 02:55am - 4504 days | #5 | |
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elephant (0)
Active User  Posts: 585 Registered: Jan 11, '07 |
Yeah it is one of them things its hard to know what to do for the best, if you have a huge collection which quite a few of us do now, having all these externals drives and having backups too, it can all get a little much to be honest. I've backuped some classic stuff only, stuff that I would hate to lose and then I also clear out stuff I could never see myself watching again. Its annoying though if a drive fails which they do, usually a bad times when you haven't backuped what you wanted of it. "Women are like tricks by sleight of hand, Which, to admire, we should not understand." WILLIAM CONGREVE | |
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| 08-23-12 06:53am - 4504 days | #6 | |
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gaypornolover (0)
Active User Posts: 153 Registered: Jul 09, '11 Location: Birmingham, UK |
Thanks for the useful replies. TBH I mainly bought the drive to backup my porn as that's pretty much the only stuff I would hate to lose on my laptop - I don't really keep anything else - my e-mails are all on webmail and I don't have many other files. I did the backup because everyone seems to say that you should back up things, but I don't really understand what a backup does. It seems to be some emergency thing if the laptop stops working. But then I think well if my laptop - which is only a cheap one anyway - ever breaks down then as long as I have the files then what the hell, I'll buy a new one! There seems little point in trying to save a cheap laptop and if I have all the files I need, I'm not sure I need a backup. Maybe I should delete the backup and just transfer my porno files to it. My main hard disk is so low on space its starting to slow my system down, so I could always transfer all my porn, delete the porn I'm least concerned about from my main laptop to make room - that way I have my favourite porn on my laptop and backed up on my external drive, and my less-favoured porn just on the external drive to access when I want it. I could get a second external drive purely as a backup device, but I'm still not 100% convinced I need it. I suppose what I'm asking - in my usual waffling way - is there something vital about a full system backup that I'm missing or haven't considered? | |
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| 08-23-12 09:14am - 4504 days | #7 | |
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rearadmiral (0)
Active User Posts: 1,453 Registered: Jul 16, '07 Location: NB/Canada |
You're right about that, and I think the answer probably depends on how you keep porn. For me, I never, ever delete anything. Even if I only watch it once I still keep it. I store all my porn on the small drives we're talking about and I back up onto larger, AC powered drives. That may be a bit of overkill. But... if you're thinking of backing up, it may be helpful to consider the cost of replacing the porn you might lose. That may not be an issue for you, but if it is and you have lose porn from ten different sites then you'd be looking at between $200 and $300 to replace it. In those terms, backing up makes sense. | |
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| 08-23-12 09:41am - 4504 days | #8 | |
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Khan (0)
Suspended  Posts: 1,737 Registered: Jan 05, '07 Location: USA |
Did you mention what operating system you're using? If Windows based, try looking at the external drive with "My Computer" file manager. That should indicate if the individual (porn) files are available. At the least, you should be able to look at the available space left on the external and make an educated guess if all your files were saved or just system files. Former PornUsers Senior Administrator Now at: MyPorn.com "To get your ideas across use small words, big ideas, and short sentences."-John Henry Patterson | |
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| 08-23-12 03:42pm - 4504 days | #9 | |
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Claypaws (0)
Suspended Webmaster Posts: 144 Registered: May 16, '12 Location: UK |
A data backup provides a copy of your porn that you would really want to be able to access on another machine entirely if your laptop had to be replaced. You would get such a copy simply by using Windows copy and paste between your hard drive and the external drive, or dragging the porn folders across with Windows Explorer or My Computer. That would create folders and files that you would recognise in the normal way and be able to access with movie players and image viewers. System backups, that most people (including me) are keen on, copy the operating system and program files that enable the computer to work. If the laptop's hard drive were to fail, a good system backup would enable the operating system and programs to be immediately reinstalled onto a new hard drive in the same laptop. Though few computer shops would do this because it is easier for them simply to install a fresh copy of Windows and to hell with your programs! And if you are not a geek, you would find it nearly impossible to restore onto a new internal hard drive yourself. Since you say you would just replace the laptop completely if anything failed, the above feature would be of no use to you. System backups are only of use when recovering onto basically identical hardware. The other thing system backups enable you to do is recover if the operating system becomes corrupted by bad software, a faulty Microsoft update or a virus. However, you can also recover from this by a clean reinstall of Windows, which a computer shop could do for you. And this would probably destroy your porn. Laptops often also have some kind of recovery CD or recovery partition on the internal hard drive which is intended to allow recovery in this situation instead of having a shop reinstall everything. Backups created by backup software are usually in a special compressed file format that you can only use via the backup software. If you look at such files in Windows Explorer, you would not see what is in them. As Khan says, file size would give you a clue as to whether they could possibly contain your porn. They might contain only the system files, or only the data, or both. You might also wish to consider whether you would want a repair shop to know what is stored on your laptop. If you wouldn't, then any kind of hardware or operating system failure would realistically cause you to replace the laptop. In that case, all you need to ensure is that your treasured collection is backed up to the external drive. Anything that is treasured should always be stored in at least two different devices. Edited on Aug 23, 2012, 03:47pm | |
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| 08-23-12 05:19pm - 4503 days | #10 | |
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Tree Rodent (0)
Active User  Posts: 708 Registered: Oct 29, '08 Location: UK |
An external drive WILL fail eventually, so anything valuable should be stored on two external drives. I had never used them before Khan and BadAndy gave me some advice, now I wouldn't be without them. | |
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| 08-24-12 04:51am - 4503 days | #11 | |
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otoh (0)
Active User Posts: 159 Registered: Sep 17, '10 Location: UK |
Excellent advice - but this applies to internal drives too. They are the same component, just packaged differently. Keeping stuff on your internal drive is intrinsically no more safe than an external - so be sure to back up stuff you keep there too. | |
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| 08-24-12 02:44pm - 4503 days | #12 | |
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Micha (0)
Active User Posts: 321 Registered: Jul 04, '10 Location: san jose ca |
otoh wrote Excellent advice - but this applies to internal drives too. They are the same component, just packaged differently. Keeping stuff on your internal drive is intrinsically no more safe than an external - so be sure to back up stuff you keep there too. Yes all disk drives will fail, The internal drive runs whenever the puter is powered up, so it will have more milage than an external, which is running only when you are accessing, adding or deleting data. I switch out internal drives (or computers) every 3 to 5 years and have never had a HD failure in 30+ years. As often as the externals run, I suspect they will outlive me. I am waiting patiently for a PB SSHD. It will last generations, eliminate the clutter, and will render this discussion unnecessary. unless life also gives you water and sugar, your lemonade is gonna suck. | |
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| 07-23-13 09:46am - 4170 days | #14 | |
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gaypornolover (0)
Active User Posts: 153 Registered: Jul 09, '11 Location: Birmingham, UK |
Can I ask a further question here please fellow porno lovers? I've decided to use my external drives purely to store porn on, and not worry about system backups. I store my porn pretty simply just using folders in Windows 7 - each porn studio/website has its own folder and I order it in date of download - I always download the oldest stuff first. So if I transfer, say, my CMNM.net porn folder onto my hard drive, is there a way that I can later transfer any new files I put in that folder on my laptop onto my external drive without duplicating things? So for example, let's say as of today (7/23/13) I have fifty films in my CMNM.net folder. In three months time I rejoin CMNM.net and download three months worth of new stuff. I now have seventy files in my CMNM.net folder including the twenty new downloads, but on my external drive I still just have the fifty I had on 7/23/13. Is there a way of having my hard drive download just the new files it doesn't have already without me having to do it manually? Could it detect what files it already has in that folder and just download what it can see it doesn't already have? | |
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| 07-23-13 09:53am - 4170 days | #15 | |
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Tree Rodent (0)
Active User Posts: 708 Registered: Oct 29, '08 Location: UK |
Although a non techno wiz, I know if you try to download a duplicate file it does let you know you already have that file and do you wish to replace the existing one. If you download a load of stuff into a new folder, then move it all to the original folder it will tell you when one of those files is a duplicate. I just press "no" then deleted all files which are duplicates. Our techno experts may have some better and more useful advice. | |
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| 07-23-13 04:35pm - 4170 days | #16 | |
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RagingBuddhist (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 893 Registered: Jan 23, '07 |
If you don't, for some reason, rename any of the files on either drive after copying them, the answer is simple. When you want to add the new files, select all of the files from the first folder and copy them over to the second folder as you normally do. When you get the first message asking if you want to overwrite the file, hold down the Shift key and click No. Copying will no longer give you that prompt and will only copy over the newer files. It's one of Micro$haft's little hidden tricks - the negative equivalent to "Yes to All" Sarcasm is a body's natural defense against stupidity. | |
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| 07-24-13 09:24am - 4169 days | #17 | |
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gaypornolover (0)
Active User Posts: 153 Registered: Jul 09, '11 Location: Birmingham, UK |
Hey thanks Squirrel and Buddhist!  Neat trick Buddhist - I had no idea such a useful feature was available!   | |
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| 07-24-13 03:34pm - 4169 days | #18 | |
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Tree Rodent (0)
Active User Posts: 708 Registered: Oct 29, '08 Location: UK |
Nice one RB, I never knew that. Only took me 10 years to find out. | |
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| 08-06-13 07:47am - 4156 days | #19 | |
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jberryl69 (0)
Disabled User  Posts: 1,000 Registered: Nov 27, '10 Location: neverland |
Since this thread is open and my question is about external hard drives I thought I would pose this here. Being in the market for a new external hard drive (I have three but I trust none of them as back up) I have looked at CNET and PCMAG for reviews. One of the fastest drives out there using the new USB 3.0 and an internal 1GB cache is the BUFFALO DriveStation DDR 2 TB Ultra Fast USB 3.0 Hard Drive with DDR3 RAM Cache - HD-GD2.0U3. But - Buffalo is a new name to me - anyone have opinion on the company? or this particular drive? CNET gave it an editor's choice and PCMAG withheld the Editor's Choice because of whether it would hold up over the test of time. Comments please!! If it ain't grits, it must be a Yankee. If you're going to lay her head over the pool table and fuck her throat, get your fucking hand off her throat! | |
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